Thursday, May 27, 2010

MRSA infections in hospitals - who bears the responsibility?

Following from the previous post, I was wondering who actually bears the financial burden of an MRSA infection... or any other hospital acquired infection?

If we consider SGH (not picking on poor SGH, but simply 'cos there are stats available for me to play with), in 2008, the MRSA rate was 0.6/1000 patient days. Since SGH clocked about 440,000 patient days in 2008, there were 0.6x440 MRSA infections..... about 260 MRSA infections in that year alone. In absolute terms, that's quite a significant number. Now, for each of these 260 patients who picked up an MRSA infection while in hospital, there are increased bed stay charges, expensive antibiotics etc. Since the infection was caused by the hospital, shouldn't the cost of managing the MRSA be borne by the hospital and not the patient....?